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MarkWhittington (1084047) writes 'The National Research Council issued its report on the future of space exploration. The report stated that the "horizon goal" for any program of space exploration in the near term (i.e. the next two decades) is a Mars surface expedition. It also stated that the current NASA program, which includes a mission that would snag an asteroid, put it in lunar orbit, and visit it with astronauts is inadequate to meet that goal.

The report gave two reasons for its critique of the current NASA program. First the asteroid redirect mission would not create and test technologies necessary to conduct a crewed Mars mission. Second, NASA projects essentially flat budgets for the foreseeable future. Any space exploration program worthy of the name will cost considerably more money, with five percent increases in NASA funding for a number of years.'

It doesn't work to do this with a democratic government. We need a monarchy:-(

Or perhaps a font of sage wisdom? You know, like a Council? Composed of wise people, you know, like one's Elders? Something any sentient species ought to be able to figure out. Speaking of which, I feel another press release coming on...

K'Breel, Speaker for the Council, addresses the publication of the new report thusly:

"WE HAVE TRIUMPHED! Our skilled operatives from the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Propaganda; Planetary Research Council have successfully infiltrated the blueworlders' technological and informational systems. One notable document, Pathways to Exploration makes clear the disarray in which the blueworlders' long-term invasion plans lie, drawing on the history of meat-controlled spaceflight to justify future programs in organic space exploitation. Although the report promotes the invasion of our world as the horizon goal for the program, it takes into account funding levels necessary to maintain a robust tempo of execution, current research and exploration projects and the time/resources needed to continue them, and intertribal cooperation that would be required to further oppress the citizens of our fair red world."

"And its conclusion? Although the mechanized threat remains, and we salute those still fighting pitched battles with the two active land-based invaders, Pathways to Exploration makes it clear that it is not possible for the blueworlders' organic-based self-replicators to invade our world, at least not without a sustained commitment to funding at a higher level than their own tribal leaders are currently providing."

When an intern from the defense engineering board suggested that improving the capabilities of the blueworlders' EDL systems, radshielding, and propulsion and power systems were ultimately matters of engineering and not physics, and could ultimately be addressed if the tribals of the blue world ever get it into their oxygen-addled brains to work together to achieve a common goal (as, the intern suggested, the way any sentient species does), K'Breel had the intern's gelsacs addled by immersing them in a suitably-merciful quantity of liquid oxygen.

Thus spake K'Breel, Speaker for the Council of Elders, Committee on Native Spaceflight; Arenautics and Defense Engineering Board; Defense Studies Board; Division of Blueworlder Social and Physical Sciences; Committee on Gelsacular Statistics.

So lets see. This is an NRC report that ONLY considered using SLS as the launch vehicle, and concluded that you cannot get to Mars with that, something has to be done differently.

How about _trying_ something different then for a change, stop trying to build redundant launch vehicles, we already have plenty, and actually invest in enabling technologies that DO get us to Mars.Like, putting spacecraft together from modules like was done with ISS and other stations before that - except without involving costly human ops. How about refuelling the spacecraft on orbit. How about doing research on partial-g environments, and launching a centrifuge. How about sending some rats en route to Mars to study different radiation shielding approach effectiveness. The list is endless. Actually, NRC PRODUCED all the enabling technology roadmaps, they are available here :http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oc... [nasa.gov]How about actually fricking following these roadmaps ( SLS is NOT in there ) and getting some stuff done ? Advanced radioisotope stirling generator that was outlined as the CRUCIAL enabling technology piece for future exploration ? Cancelled ! Funds are required to build a monster rocket to nowhere instead...

But, if you keep doing the same thing over and over, no reason to expect a different result. Kill the waste, and start investing in future.

Of course the report is only about using the SLS as a launch vehicle. That's all NASA is allowed to look into by it's political masters. The SLS isn't being used because it is superior technology. It's used because it maximizes the number of jobs across a number of districts for the politicians.

And NASA could actually reach a goal if it's goals weren't changed every couple of years by Congress or the President.

How about actually fricking following these roadmaps ( SLS is NOT in there ) and getting some stuff done ? Advanced radioisotope stirling generator that was outlined as the CRUCIAL enabling technology piece for future exploration ? Cancelled ! Funds are required to build a monster rocket to nowhere instead...

But, if you keep doing the same thing over and over, no reason to expect a different result. Kill the waste, and start investing in future.

Or we need to include NASA in the military budget, and assuming outer space is gonna get divided up into smallscale Star Trek-like micro quadrants (alpha quadrant, beta quadrant) by whoever occupies it first and sticks a flag down with a rotating space station, with some minimum distance rule by these things, so conquest of areas close to Earth as space territories is important if they are more valuable than the ones farther away, even if there is a lot of room up there. But before anything else comes the M

Not just SpaceX, but Bigelow and Blue Origin.
The fact is, that to get to the moon and mars, we need multiple companies that can compete but also provide redunancy.
Sadly, the GOP is intent on killing off private space. Even the tea* are allowing the neo-cons to pull this shit.

The Chinese. Right. Because they have rovers on Mars... uh... because they have orbiters around Saturn... uh... because they have probes in interstellar space... uh... because they have space telescopes... uh... because they have a mission to Pluto... uh...

Also, they have a central government capable of making big decisions and capable of running large technical projects.They may only have a little rover on the Moon, and very few (if any) space probes that are outside the earth's gravity well, but they can totally claim that they can make a decision, and then commit huge efforts to it. Look at their high speed railways. They have overtaken Europe (all of it combined) already.

If the Chinese are going for it, they really are going for it... unlike Europe or the US where the decisions are taken by a committee, which eventually will reach some lame compromise to do it only for 50% and only within a set of criteria which must support the almighty Economy, because heaven forsake if we ever waste some money - all the while blowing away money on management and bureaucratic inefficiency.

The Chinese. Right. Because they have rovers on Mars... uh... because they have orbiters around Saturn... uh... because they have probes in interstellar space... uh... because they have space telescopes... uh... because they have a mission to Pluto... uh...

Try again.

The US of 1960 had none of those, either. Yet in 1969 Neil Armstrong was standing in the Sea of Tranquility.

The Apollo Mission wasn't driven by the lure of exploration, but by the massive Cold War fear of the Soviet Union getting there first. As bad as Putin might be barking now, we're not nearly as afraid of them as we once were.

I have a great deal of respect for you and your accomplishments/contributions to the world at large, so I'm going to attempt to be civil instead of quite so frothy at the mouth.

I too have a great deal of respect for your work, Mr. Anonymous Coward. With your fervent idealism combined with nonsensical and sometimes hilarious non-sequiturs and even the occasionally great "First Post!" you have molded, reshaped and reshaped again the core of our Slashdot civilization for eons or even hours to come. Here's to you Mr. Anonymous Coward!

I think it's most people's impression that NASA is just going through the motion, making empty noises wrt Mars human exploration. There simply is no viable plan nor adequate budget to come up with a viable plan.

There simply is no viable plan nor adequate budget to come up with a viable plan.

Maybe the problem is that we need a new organization that can come up with a viable plan on the very ample budget NASA receives. It always amazes me how low expectations are for NASA and similar organizations.

Given what he was getting through congress, even an asteroid capture is probably overly optimistic. Mind you, it's not clear to me that he as actually trying to get to Mars, despite his stated committment.

OTOH, I also consider that an asteroid capture mission might easily be more valuable than a "lets visit Mars like we did the Moon" mission. I have found the US space program to be a profound disappointment. Most of it isn't NASAs fault. But factories in orbit might just be the way to get people to take

I basically agree with you, but the statement "But automated factories need to get considerably better before that's a reasonable scenario" is outdated. Have you been recently in an automobile factory? Up until almost the end of the production line there are no humans involved. The couple humans that run around are only there when something goes wrong and the tolerances for that are awfully low, often the robots will stop in an error condition and the human reviewing the issue can not even see what is wrong

Then you are NOT paying attention.
We are making progress in early 90's, when the neo-cons killed off NASA's efforts to go to Mars.
BUT, Clinton did the smart thing and push for a lot of tech transfer, esp. to Bigelow with transhab.
Now, for the last 8 years, we have had multiple competitions that are developing private space to make it happen.
Basically, NASA is transferring information AND helping to create numerous companies. THings are looking up.
What is needed now, is to stop the GOP's assault on p

Then you are NOT paying attention.
We are making progress in early 90's, when the neo-cons killed off NASA's efforts to go to Mars.

No, sorry, that's just wrong.

Congress may have been tight on the budget, but in fact NASA had active manned Mars mission plans ongoing until Obama told them to stop and concentrate on asteroids instead. It's a matter of public record.

No, I would say that the sufferer is yourself.
You neo-con/tea-party type continue to push us towards the SLS as well as going to the moon, while ignoring real facts.
O has kept private space going. O did NOT come up with the asteroids, but it was NASA that came forward with the Idea. He is simply supporting it.
And why is he supporting it? Because it accomplishes multiple things. The first is how to move an asteroid that COULD be on a collision course for the earth. BUT, it can also mean moving a small-me

This is 100% irrelevant to the point that was being made: long ago Obama publicly directed NASA to cease any significant efforts toward manned missions to Mars. (Which was the subject under discussion here: human exploration.)

That is NOT really what Obama is saying. He says that to the public. What he is counting on, is that private space will go to the moon and mars. He wants NASA to help them. In fact, once Bigelow builds his space station, the first long-term PAYING astronauts will be 1-2 NASA ppl for 1-2 years. And when Bigelow puts a station on the moon, no doubt, we will pay for 1-2 NASA ppl to be there CONSTANTLY.

There's no reason to go to the bottom of another gravity well. We should be travelling to, learn from, and eventually exploit the asteroids. It makes more sense for the long term viability of the human race.

Why go anywhere else at all? As the pace of technology accelerates, it may well be that the future of the human race is staying put right here, moving into a virtual reality instead of expanding outward through the cosmos. Defense against asteroids could be automated, and while the sun would eventually expand into a red giant and engulf the Earth, we still have a few billion years, so there's no rush.

It is curious that this possibility is rarely considered in nerd circles, as it has been proposed by scienc

Because we need resources, and we can get those resource from asteroids. Also, we need to expand for the survival of the species.

Ironically the tech to make what you speculate to happen will only come about as a spin off from space exploration.People in VR? we need to put them some place, we need them to be able to be still for large amounts of time, we need complete automated systems, and so on.

A trans-human society may be able to make do with the resources available on Earth. Assuming technology exists to transmute materials, the only thing needed is more energy, and research in fusion is going ahead regardless of the scaling back of space exploration. Even if we went up into orbit to create a system of beamed solar power as is often discussed, that's not the same as moving into space.

Ironically the tech to make what you speculate to happen will only come about as a spin

Because we need resources, and we can get those resource from asteroids.

Let's do the math. Lets say we re can re-equip the Curiosity rover and send it to an asteroid, asteroid 1981 Midas, to mine metal. We luck out, and after scraping off some cometary debris, it turns out that 1981 Midas is SOLID GOLD! Just we assumed it would be, based on the name. The rover then initiates its grizzled 1849 gold prospector protocol and jumps up and down whooping and yelling like crazy. Now it starts mining. How long before it turns a profit, in our scenario- which is at best very unrealistic

Because we need resources, and we can get those resource from asteroids. Also, we need to expand for the survival of the species.

Ironically the tech to make what you speculate to happen will only come about as a spin off from space exploration.
People in VR? we need to put them some place, we need them to be able to be still for large amounts of time, we need complete automated systems, and so on.

Technical spinoffs occur when you have any major effort in research and applied technology. There's a popular myth that the space program is the major, perhaps only source of "spinoffs". That's simply not true.

There's no reason to go to the bottom of another gravity well. We should be travelling to, learn from, and eventually exploit the asteroids. It makes more sense for the long term viability of the human race.

There are ALL KINDS of legitimate reasons to go to the bottom of another gravity well. Especially the Moon's.

If we can figure out efficient ways to extract them, resources such as minerals, and even oxygen, are abundant. Moon rocks have lots of oxygen... and why do you think Mars is red?

But perhaps more to the point: we have learned that construction in microgravity is intolerably slow and tedious. Precisely because there is no gravity. BUT... in a shallow gravity well, such as Mars and even more so t

There's another excellent reason for a Moon colony: we can learn how to build, maintain and live in an environment where there's little or no atmosphere and is close enough to Earth that extra supplies can be shipped there on fairly short notice. Once we know how to build a self-sufficient lunar colony, we can use what we've learned there on Mars, the largest asteroids and possibly some of the Jovian or Saturnian moons.

I think I can debate this on point. Why is looking a ball of ice, and nickel more significant than a colony on the Moon? Why not put a telescope on the Moon? Why not pick up the H3 that is litteraly on the ground there and use it for Fusion technologies? ISS works, now put one around the moon, an on the surface of the moon. If you're interested in a Trillion dollar business model, sell Senior Living on the moon, where ones weight is about an eighth, and less phyical demands on an aging angry Tea Party membe

Militarize NASA and make the liberation of the Solar System from the enemies of FREEDOM priorities of National Security. At that point Congress will be tripping over themselves put the US an additional 15 Trillion in debt in order to invade Mars and install a puppet dictatorship that is friendly to US and Israeli interests.

Seriously, forget Mars. It's like Utah, but cold, and even more boring. We know Mars.

Now, rearranging big chunks of our solar system to get our grubby hand on some sweet sweet platinum, that's the sort of crazy shit that our parents hoped we'd be doing by now. In any case, that's what we should be doing, imo.

Its not really an "asteroid", its a rock and not a very big one. We are talking about moving something the size of your living room, not a dinosaur-killer certainly not Ceres. . We have lots of fragments from meteors already.

Its OK, but it seems like a lot of work to move the entire rock here rather than just collect interesting samples and bring them back.

As the article said, it doesn't seem to really develop much interesting technology.

It develops the a lot of tech. Creating a machine that has to make decisions and course correcting the 3d is a great challenge. Plus, we learn how to do it better so we can move up to big rocks.The more we understand that, them better a solution we will \have when a big one is headed are way.

"There is some Pt in asteroids, but no where near enough to pay for this type of effort."and there never will be. they more you get, the bigger the drop in value. Still, there is a lot of use for platinum, so it being c

or his clone and watch it produce 100x the results it would otherwise.
Ok, if you can't how about diverting a little of the defense budget to NASA? Just 1% is enough. It will still be rather wasted compared to what the likes of SpaceX could do, but compared to the complete waste of warfare it is still great...

SpaceX doesn't have the R&D hurdle that NASA had to achieve LEO. SpaceX first to mars? That seems unlikely. Perhaps if we gave them a sustained budget comparable to mid-60s NASA levels for a couple decades. Or, we could just fund NASA, they are quite competent.

Rereading your post, I realize that you are actually claiming that SpaceX would be unable to get to Mars on $177 million per year indefinitely given to them just for that purpose. That's a lot of money for a company that developed their current launch workhorse, the Falcon 9 from scratch for a bit under two years of such funding.

You mean like a powered landing [youtube.com]? Ok that thing is a prototype, but it looks like it will be in service within this decade. Elon Musk is a genius when it comes to reducing operational costs. Sure they build on top of existing technologies, but they have surpassed them and are stepping into unknown territory. With the combination of the Dragon 2 and the grasshopper [youtube.com] we may see launch vehicles and space ships that are fully reusable, similar to how planes are today. Refuel them, maybe spay on a new layer to the

I'm going to go out on a limb and say we will NEVER be able to explore/exploit/colonize space unless we do away with war. It's dangerous out there. Very dangerous. Even just a fistfight in the ISS could destroy the whole thing.

People have this strange idea that NASA hates private businesses and doesn't want to compete with them,

This "strange idea" is called "experience". For example, prior to the days of contracting with private firms for launch services, it was illegal for US payloads to go up on anything other than a Shuttle. Even afterward, NASA would still price their launches well below cost. NASA isn't the only cause of such problems (for example, the aerospace businesses are not above using US regulation and bogus safety concerns to mess each other up), but they haven't helped.

SpaceX has done well with LEO launches because that's a 50 year old problem.

Yes. SpaceX is a classic example of privatising profits and socialising costs.

And your post is a good example of speaking before thinking.

All the tech was essentially hard won through government spending, 'big science', and 'big engineering'.

We don't have to take an anonymous coward's word for it. When NASA studied [nasa.gov] what SpaceX had done through November 2010, including access to SpaceX's internal records, and asked "How much would it have cost?" for NASA to contract out the same effort (here, developing the Falcon 9 and two initial launches of that platform, plus development of several rocket engines), they found that they would have required a contract of almost $4 billion dollars (rev

Yes. SpaceX is a classic example of privatising profits and socialising costs.

And your post is a good example of speaking before thinking.

Err...No. What OP meant was that all the R&D done by and for NASA from 1945 through 2006 or so gave SpaceX the knowledge, technology and expertise to improve the exercise of going to LEO. I am going to assume you didn't realize that, rather than assume that you are an idiot. That may be a mistake, but that happens sometimes.

What OP meant was that all the R&D done by and for NASA from 1945 through 2006 or so gave SpaceX the knowledge, technology and expertise to improve the exercise of going to LEO.

And we're all dumber for him saying that. I realize that the trillion dollars or so squandered by NASA and similar projects is an impressive sunk cost. But we can still choose to recognize that just because a lot of money was spent, doesn't mean that the result is a significant contribution to the modern world or to SpaceX in particular.

The problem here is that as some people have noted elsewhere, this is a fifty year old problem. But it's a fifty year problem with almost no progress made by NASA over th

I'm glad the National Research Council has published this... maybe now it will get some traction. Having said that, it does not take a rocket scientist to see that the program is underfunded and will not be able to meet any of its goals. Frankly, this is true of not just NASA, but science in general. Too many in Congress talk about the importance of STEM; but, when push comes to shove are unwilling to fund R&D and large scale engineering programs.

There's huge sums shoveled at STEM today. It's not funding that's the problem here, but the remarkably poor returns on that funding.

Eh, not so much. US Science Funding [wikipedia.org] only represents 20% (~$90 Billion) of total R&D (~$450 Billion) in the US. That means that government spending on R&D is only 0.56% of US GDP [wikipedia.org]

I do not think humans will get into expanding our civilization past Earth's atmosphere until there is a single global government. Currently the nation-states divert too many resources against each other (arms, trade wars), that instead could be used into expanding us beyond Earth.

I do not think humans will get into expanding our civilization past Earth's atmosphere until there is a single global government. Currently the nation-states divert too many resources against each other (arms, trade wars), that instead could be used into expanding us beyond Earth.

That point of view only makes sense, if governments are the only source of industry and innovation. They aren't.

Ah, yes, one world government. Because there isn't nearly enough tyranny on this planet already. Surely, a global government would concentrate resources on space and advancing the cause of humanity instead of large-scale theft for their own tribe and armed response to anyone who disagreed.

Why is sending humans to Mars supposed to be such a great thing? It's incredibly expensive, incredibly dangerous, and doesn't accomplish much of anything useful. Once you've sent them, the next trip will be almost as expensive as the first one.

I'm much more interested in building up a meaningful, sustainable space program. That means building up an industrial base in space. We need to be able to manufacture things in space out of raw materials that were mined in space. That's the only way that human space travel will ever be economically sustainable. So that asteroid mission sounds like exactly the right approach to be taking.

Why is sending humans to Mars supposed to be such a great thing? It's incredibly expensive, incredibly dangerous, and doesn't accomplish much of anything useful. Once you've sent them, the next trip will be almost as expensive as the first one.

Well, since you asked...

"Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."

Of course if the challenge of sending humans to Mars is something we are unwilling to accept, or willing to postpone, or intend to lose...

Industrializing space may sound like a meaningful thing, but industrializing areas of our own earth hasn't been the most ecological of pursuits. Nothing like the chants of "drill-baby-drill" being replaced by "launch-and-mine-baby-launch-and-mine"... It seems like it was also meaningful thing Yellowstone was the first national park, although I'm

A politician's speech is the best you can come up with to explain why we need to reach Mars? Oh, my. JFK was all hot and bothered to reach the moon because it would upstage the Soviets, not because it was a noble or even sensible endeavor. There are a number of good reasons why a mission to mars would be desirable: (1) it requires the development of long-range manned spacecraft, (2) it gets us out of low earth orbit, (3) (in the long term) it encourages the development of new forms of long-range propulsion

But that's exactly the problem: it doesn't get us out of low earth orbit. Or rather, it gets precisely one ship out of low earth orbit, but the next one we send out will have to start all over from ground level. Sending anything from the earth's surface into space is incredibly expensive. As long as we have to rely on that, we will never be able to do more than a handful of one-off missions involving a handful of people.

I want to see humans colonizing space. I want to see permanent habitats where people

FWIW, Ecology isn't just "fuzzy" animals and although space is not likely to be completely sterile (e.g., space faring bacteria diaspora?), you can still have ecological impact w/o native organizing. However, it could affect *our* future

Say capturing an asteroid and mining it isn't going to kill and fuzzy animals, but there is likely going to be unexpected collateral pollution issues (e.g, space debris in orbit of the moon, etc). Nascent industrial operations often ignore any such collateral pollution iss

And there is no such thing as "unrestrained industrial forces" in space. Space treaty already constrains the activities you discuss. If debris from my mining operation wipes out your satellite, then I and my backing government are already financially responsible for that damage.

I'm much more interested in building up a meaningful, sustainable space program.

Well, the thing is that we'll realistically need a meaningful sustainable space program to get to Mars. That's why we're not getting to Mars. The work ahead of us to have a successful mission to Mars currently means a lot more than just building a ship and going. The intervening steps pretty much require the space program you want. Nobody wants to pay for it, thus we're not going to Mars either.

I think we can solve problem 1 right now. I suggest having lots of sex. I'm sure someone here has worked out the necessary procedures.

As to point 2, I believe we need to create and maintain an international network of education facilities - I'll call these "colleges" - to carry the educational load needed for your second imaginary problem.

Well, the thing is, if your scientists and engineers haven't been born yet, then keeping them unborn is a huge obstacle to having them make that Mars mission work. Getting born is in the critical path here. I'm merely fixing the problems as they come.

2) Surface expedition. Landing at, and taking off from, Mars' surface. Mars' gravity is much stronger than the Moon's - the expeditionary module needs a really big rocket to return to Mars' orbit, which means it needs to be really big.

Don't forget there's also the atmosphere to contend with. Not thick enough to breathe or shield you against anything space throws at the surface, but enough to contend with when it comes to landing AND liftoff.